Rapid City
Rapid City, once a city in the state of South Dakota, has descended into endemic warfare and chaos after the Great War, even as it remains in ruins. However, in recent years, the city has gone to new levels of violence due to the conflict between Custer's American Army and the American Northern Army, the Generals' War. History Pre-War Before the War, Rapid City was one of the largest cities in the Northern Commonwealth and home to a lot of military facilities such as Ellsworth AFB and Camp Deadwood. This only increased with the Annexation of Canada and the Sino-American War, allowing the city to avoid the stagnation that had consumed the rest of the Northern Commonwealth because of the dive in oil production. Great War On October 23, 2077, five nuclear bombs fell on Rapid City. One fell on Camp Rapid and one fell on Ellsworth AFB while the other three targeted Rapid City proper. Rapid City was leveled by the three bombs and most of the residents were killed almost immediately with only a few survivors from underground shelters and the city's lone vault, Vault 52. Camp Rapid and Ellsworth AFB were abandoned by the survivors of the bombs in favor of better places. After the bombs fell, Rapid City was almost completely deserted as most who had survived above ground or been ghoulified moved on by the winter of 2077. The ones who stayed mostly resorted to cannibalism and died of various diseases. The only people to actually survive this devastation was an ethnic enclave of Chinese, held together by their pure determination. These survivors would later spawn the Yen Boys raider gang. For a few years, feral ghouls were Rapid City's only other residents. Post War In 2090, scavengers and raiders were the first to return to the ruins of Rapid City, the raiders following the scavengers respectively. Scavenger settlements were the first to rise, with the settlement of Coolidge rising in 2105 and Rapid Valley in 2107. The raiders soon went to work robbing and pillaging the scavengers. This led to the formation of the first raider gangs in Rapid City. Coolidge was destroyed by raiders in 2121, and Rapid Valley was subjected to numerous raiders attacks for the rest of its existence. Rapid City became a city of raiders. The raiders, bereft of easy targets to strike, turned on each other, and by 2150, a total street war among raiders in Rapid City had begun that lasted for almost one hundred and thirty years, with many changing raider gangs and individuals. This went on uninterrupted even when in 2184, the Dakota Regulators were formed specifically to combat the raiders of Rapid City, to no avail. The next big change came in 2203 when a super mutant warband, fractured from Gammorin's Army, arrived in Rapid City and brought the Unity's ideology with it. This group, becoming known as the Superiority, did not gain much ground in Rapid City because of its strict adherence to the Unity. However, the super mutants became fed up with their insane nightkin commander and killed him. The super mutants then allowed humans and ghouls into the Superiority and became a proper raider group. This coincided with the decline of the Dakota Regulators and the rise of other raider gangs. After that, the Superiority gained a strong foothold in Rapid City and in 2211, they staged a major attack on Rapid Valley, killing the head of the Dakota Regulators and making off with a lot of loot. This gave the Superiority much prestige in Rapid City and in the rest of the Dakotas, making it a prominent group during the Great Raider Wars. For about forty more years, the Superiority remained on top, weathering the Great Raider Wars, and the settlement of Rapid Valley desperately fended off raider attacks with the help of the Dakota Regulators. As Custer's American Army rose in power, they managed to gain a toehold in Rapid City in 2251 by taking over the overgrown ruins of Camp Rapid. However, they did not move from there for a long time. Their influence was mostly confined to slavers who raided inside the city and sold their slaves to work building Fort Rushmore. The Rockers also took residence in the ruins of Ellsworth AFB around this time. The next big change in Rapid City happened in 2257 when Custer's American Army came into conflict with the Dakota Regulators, over Custer's dealing with slavers in the city. This led to a war that was muted at first but would spiral out of control later. The next year (2258), Vault 52 opened, unleashing an army of crazed junkies on Rapid City. The junkies from Vault 52 soon fell upon several raider camps, including the Superiority. The vault dwellers' rampage was only stopped after several weeks when they were broken attacking Rapid Valley. The surviving vault dwellers broke apart and by 2259 had formed their own raider gangs, causing further conflict in Rapid City. The Superiority and the older raider gangs defended their territory furiously from these new raiders. At the same time, Custer's American Army and the Dakota Regulators were feuding with each other as well as the raiders. A new level of hostilities was reached. However, some form of normality was reached by 2265. When the Dakota Regulators joined the American Northern Army, Custer ceased hostilities. The raiders continued to fight among themselves but that only weakened them further when up against more civilized enemies. Rapid City became safer as ANA protected trade and Custer clamped down on raiders to the west. However, the ANA (especially the more corrupt Dakota Regulators) preferred the raiders to Custer and were known to use them as proxies. Things changed once again in 2276 when Custer's American Army took over the abandoned Vault 52, deep in understood ANA territory, and converted it into a military base. Threatened by this, the ANA in the area, led by Tom Renner and assisted by the Rockers, attacked Vault 52 disguised as raiders and sacked the place. At the time, Custer's American Army assumed raiders were responsible and reacted appropriately. The raiders of Rapid City suffered accordingly. However, in 2279, Custer learned that the Rockers were involved in the battle along with a third party. Upon learning this, Custer began to systematically hunt the Rockers down, wanting to get to the bottom of this business. Soon enough, Custer discovered that the ANA was responsible for these attacks. Enraged and not willing to back down, Custer declared war upon the entire American Northern Army and called on his allies for aid. In Rapid City specifically, Custer went on the offensive, attacking ANA positions and outposts throughout the ruins. The ANA Army of the South was ill-prepared for an attack and was further hindered by raider activity. However, when Custer's American Army actually besieged Rapid Valley, the ANA were the ones who benefitted from the raiders, with the Superiority attacking Custer's forces numerous times. The siege of Rapid Valley continued after Custer left to fight the Army of the North, but it was called off in the winter of 2280. After that winter and the withdrawal of most of the ANA from the Borderlands, Custer diverted his attention back to Rapid City. This time, though, Custer used a different tactic: eliminate all the Rapid City raider gangs who were hindering him through utter and total war. Many of the unorganized raider bands in the city were killed off quickly but the Superiority and many others have managed to survive. In 2287, there is a feeling of unnatural unease in Rapid City. The raiders of the city have scaled back their attacks on Rapid Valley and have redirected their efforts at Custer's American Army and their caravans. The Superiority leads these raider groups and acts as a go-between for the raider factions and more "legitimate" groups due to their size and notoriety. Custer's forces are making great headway in the city, killing hundreds of raiders a year and advancing through the city ruins slowly. Meanwhile in Rapid Valley, Renner's Raiders and the Army of South are working to oppose Custer's American Army through any means necessary. Layout The ruins of Rapid City are jumbled and untamed, with only a few full-sized settlements in the area. They are far outnumbered by junkie dens and raider nests, the city's signature feature. Economy The economy of Rapid City is mainly made up of three things: scrap, slaves, and chems. These are exploited by all factions in Rapid City, raider and "civilized", and farming is rare at least inside the city. Feral ghouls are also exported from Rapid City for use in the ghoul fights. Culture The culture of Rapid City is best described as brutal and mercenary. The city is unforgiving, as are its raiders and civilized residents. Notable Locations Camp Rapid Custer's American Army's foothold inside Rapid City, Camp Rapid is less of a settlement than a war camp with very little of pre-War Camp Rapid surviving. Nonetheless, it is the second best place for legitimate trade in Rapid City and even non-legitimate trade such as the chem Shiver. Coolidge Once a scavver camp early after the bombings, Coolidge was destroyed and subsequently taken over by raiders in the early 2100s. It has changed hands numerous times and served as a major raider camp and settlement, though never as big as Rapid Valley. Coolidge is currently under the tenuous control of the Superiority, who are fortifying it against attack. Coolidge is named after a pre-War statue that is inside the settlement. Ellsworth AFB The skeleton of Ellsworth AFB is currently occupied by the Rockers. The base was thought picked clean long ago by scavengers, but the Rockers managed to find a new weapons and information stache that they used to gain power in the Territory. The Rockers have done little to restore Ellsworth, and it stays in ruins. Honor's Cost Named in jest of a Dakota Regulator, the cost is home to the Rust Bones, a raider clan that has recently begun selling Shiver. While almost exclusively a raider camp, one can find the odd runaway slave and merchant, as the Bones look at most slavers as 'outsiders' and will take in slaves to spite them. Peril Originally a normal if run-down neighborhood, it would become a ghetto for Asian-Americans in Rapid City before the war. After it, Peril would slowly morph and take on Asian features and architecture, a result of both The Yen Boys that call the settlement home, and to promote their ethno-nationalist views. Rapid Valley An ANA walled settlement and former pre-War suburb, Rapid Valley has been besieged for most of its existence, and this continues to this day. The largest organized town in the Rapid City ruins, Rapid Valley serves as a lynchpin for legitimate trade and caravan traffic. The Dakota Regulators were formed to protect Rapid Valley and continue to guard the settlement after joining the ANA. Rapid Valley is also known for its staunch xenophobia against mutants, earned from years of fighting off super mutants and ghouls. Vault 52 The only vault in Rapid City and one of the few in South Dakota, Vault 52's social experiment was in the benefits and drawbacks of daily supplements in the form of pills that boosted metabolism and lessened the need for sleep. A "limitless" supply of these pills were stored inside the Vault and were given out three times a day. This supply ran out in 2258 and the crazed vault dwellers, suffering from severe withdrawal and overpopulation, escaped the vault and ravaged Rapid City. Later, Vault 52 was occupied Custer's American Army but was taken down by the ANA. Now, Vault 52 stands empty and picked over by scavengers. It is used as bait by a band of cannibalistic raiders called the Carnists. Wobble A small settlement on top of a skyscraper, Wobble serves as a neutral meeting spot for the city's factions. Whether to negotiate a back-channel peace, or arrange an attack on a rival, politics abound. Category:Places Category:Badlands